Did Dawkins Reveal a Blind Watchmaker?

Michael Hoffman

SECTION ONE

I. Introduction

Over the last two thousand years, Christians, as well as
other theists, have attempted to prove the existence of God. The motivations
and expectations of these proofs have varied. In the Enlightenment, people
believed that they could prove God's existence in the same way that I
could prove that the three angles of a triangle equal one hundred and
eighty degrees. They did not only think that these proofs could succeed.
Some even believed that a logical proof was a necessary foundation for
the Christian religion. Today, theologians are more concerned with showing
the probability or plausibility of the belief in an omnipotent being,
in order to defend themselves from modern skeptics. A good proof for the
existence of God can show that theistic religions are not illogical absurdities,
but logically defensible positions.

There are many different types of proofs for the existence
of God, but the form that I find most promising is the argument from design.
The most famous version of the design argument was formulated by William
Paley. Basically, it claims that the complexity of different aspects of
the universe, especially in biology, demands a creator.

Many philosophers, like Hume and Kant, criticized this
argument, but the design argument faced its most formidable opponent after
1859 with the publication of The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin.
Darwin's theory of evolution claims that complexity found in organisms
is the result of physical forces. Therefore, the obvious conclusion is
that if complexity is caused by blind forces, then it was not created
by higher being. Darwin alludes to this conclusion, but Richard Dawkins
clearly presents that sort of argument in his two works, The Blind
Watchmaker and "The Improbability of God". Dawkin's basic thesis is
that the complexity found in organisms is the product of natural selection
and, therefore, not the work of a creative "watchmaker."

In this paper, I am going to examine Dawkins' project
and eventually conclude that he fails. I am not necessarily arguing against
evolution, but criticizing Dawkins' attempts to show the plausibility
of evolution and discredit all belief in an omnipotent creator.

II. Paley and the Design Argument

It is widely agreed that the design argument has been influential
in Christian thought. Dawkins claims that the design argument is at the
foundation of most people's faith. As Dawkins writes in "The Improbability
of God," "why do people believe in God? For most people the answer is
still some version of the ancient Argument from Design."1
A design argument for the existence of God would be any argument that
tries to prove the existence of an ultimate creative being from the idea
that at least part of the universe exists in such a way that it is probable
that it was designed by intelligence. Let us examine the traditional paradigm
for the design argument, the argument constructed by the great natural
theologian, William Paley.

Paley's argument starts with a famous illustration. To
paraphrase, if a man was walking across a field, and he came upon a rock,
he would have no reason to suppose that anyone had ever put that rock
there. On the other hand, if a man came across a watch in a field, he
would automatically assume that some person placed it there. This seems
obvious, but why? What is the difference between the rock and the watch?
The fundamental difference is that the watch shows great complexity, while
the rock is relatively simple. The intricate relationship between each
of the gears and widgets is far too improbable to leave to chance. Therefore,
when we come across something complex like a watch, we assume that the
watch had a creator. In other words, for every watch there must be a watchmaker.

Paley then claims that there are things in the universe
that are vastly more complex than watches. His favorite example is the
eye which is a million times more complex than even the Hubbell telescope.
Thus, if the watch's complexity posited the need for a creator, then something
(with far greater intelligence then human beings) must have created the
universe and the particular things in it, like eyes. Kenneth Nelson simplifies
Paley's argument in the following manner:

1. The natural world displays intricate order. 2. It is similar to, and even greatly exceeds
in intricacy, the ordered artifacts that human intelligence can produce.3. So, by analogy, the natural world likewise
was probably made by a very intelligent creator.2

Nelson presents Paley's argument as an argument from analogy.
There is intricate order in the universe, and this order is similar to
the order found in contrivances. Therefore, because contrivances are created
by intelligent beings, an intelligent being also created the universe.
Two important aspects of this argument are probability and analogy. This
argument is not trying to prove the certainty of God's existence. It is
simply claiming that from the state of the universe, it is probable that
an intelligent being was responsible for its creation. Secondly, Paley's
argument rests on an analogy. As Victor Nuovo explains, "The analogy of
contrivances becomes the sure foundation of natural theology."3
The analogy stands that particular things in this universe are like contrivances,
and contrivances have a creator; therefore, the universe has a creator.
Contrivances are simply created things, which perform a function. Paley
compares contrivances like telescopes to natural things like eyes. Paley's
argument lives and dies with this analogy.

III. Darwin and Evolution

Many philosophers have attempted to discredit Paley's argument.
For example, Hume attacks the analogies and the nature of a creator if
the design argument is true. Kant claims that the design argument is somehow
dependent upon the ontological argument, which he has rejected, but for
the most part, versions of the design argument have survived these criticisms.
But over the past fifty years, the design argument has been under fire
stemming form a new criticism. Many people, like Victor Nuovo, believe
that Paley's argument cannot survive Darwin's theory of natural selection.
Thus Nuovo writes that "Paley was defeated neither by Hume nor by Kant,
but by Darwin, Darwin did this by replacing Paley's analogy with another
that accounted for the origin of species and natural contrivances in a
way that made theism superfluous."4

Darwinism has established itself in the academic world,
and Darwin's theory of natural selection is the prevailing school of thought.
David Stove makes the claim in his article, "So You Think You Are a Darwinian?"
that "most educated people now are Darwinians, in the sense that they
believe our species to have originated, not in a creative act of the Divine
Will, but by evolution from other animals."5
I am not going to explain Darwin's theory in detail because I am mainly
concerned with the philosophical elements of Dawkin's work. I am not attacking
Darwin's biology. I am criticizing Dawkins' philosophical moves.

Dawkins' provides an analogy to help understand the basics.
He compares evolution to an arms race, like the arms race between the
United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.6
First of all, the whole theory depends on natural selection. Natural selection
claims that occasionally one member is born with a mutation, which makes
him more likely to survive and bear children then another member of the
same species without this mutation. For example, the ancestor of modern
day turtles was born with some sort of shell, which protected it from
some species of predators. It was therefore more likely to survive and
reproduce, and some of his offspring will have this mutated gene. Eventually
the gene will become a dominant trait throughout the species, forming
a new "improved" species of turtles. The arms race metaphor comes into
play when two species are competing for survival. Antelopes got faster
to avoid cheetahs, so one day a cheetah was born with spots that enabled
it to sneak up on antelopes. The basic idea of Darwin's theory is that
over the billions of years that this earth has been in existence, species
have been in competition with each other and amongst themselves, producing
more complex species.

I will return to some of these ideas later, but the important
thing to note now is that many people believe that Darwin has destroyed
the design argument. Remember that Paley's argument depends on the strength
of his analogies. Victor Nuovo claims that "even when well used, however,
conclusions drawn by analogy are only probable, and they are subject to
recall when there is new knowledge that contradicts them."7
Darwin's theory produced new information, so the question that remains
is whether the information which science is providing about evolution
disproves Paley's analogies. Many people think that it does. I have already
shown what Nuovo thinks. Ernst Mayr holds that "Darwin refuted the belief
that diversity of organisms found on earth was the result of creation."8
Even Darwin himself thought that his work refuted Paley. As Darwin wrote
in the Origin of Species, "the old argument of design in nature,
as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me so conclusive, fails, now
that the law of natural selection has been discovered."9

It is impossible for me, in such a limited work to discuss
all the different versions of Darwinism and whether or not the design
argument can withstand their criticisms. Therefore, I am going to limit
my discussion to Richard Dawkins' attempts to reject the design argument
and discredit the belief in a supreme creator.

SECTION TWO

I. Dawkin's Project

In The Blind Watchmaker and "The Improbability of
God," Dawkins sets out to accomplish several things. His main focus is
to show that evolution reveals a universe without design. Dawkins is writing
for a popular audience. He does not use technical vocabulary or refer
to works that a moderately educated person would not recognize. Many people
claim that Dawkins provides a persuasive account of Darwinism that popular
culture can understand. Referring to The Blind Watchmaker, Michael
Ruse says, "if you do not accept Darwinism after reading this book, you
never will."10

Dawkins starts at the same point that Paley began. There
is great complexity in the world. Dawkins explains the vast complexity
in nature in great detail, and just like Paley, Dawkins claim that such
complexity needs an explanation whereas the existence of a stone would
not. In The Blind Watchmaker, he argues that "complicated things,
everywhere, deserve a very special kind of explanation."11
Dawkins defines a complex thing as "something whose constituent parts
are arranged in a way that is unlikely to have arisen by chance."12
To understand this, we can use Paley's favorite example. If someone was
to throw all the components of a watch in a box and shake it up, there
is next to no chance that the product would tell time. For Dawkins, the
same applies to animals. In "The Improbability of God" he states that
"we can safely conclude that living bodies are billions of times too complicated,
too statistically improbable, to have come into being by sheer chance."13
Again, Dawkins and Paley agree that complex things, like watches and whales
require explanations other than random chance.

The difference comes in their explanation of the complexity
found in nature. Dawkins claims that people like Hume were right to criticize
Paley's analogies, but "he (Hume) did not offer any alternative explanation
for apparent design."14 Now that Darwin has
given us his theory of natural selection, we have an alternate explanation.
Remember that arguments by analogy need to be reevaluated when there is
new information. Dawkins claims that evolution shows that watches and
organisms are not as similar as Paley believed. In fact, the analogy is
only strong because watches were created by an intelligent agent, and
evolution shows that organisms were formed through natural forces. Dawkins
explains the breakdown of the watchmaker-contrivance analogy in the introduction
of The Blind Watchmaker. Watches are not like organisms because
watches are created by beings with goals and other characteristics of
intelligence. Organisms were formed by "blind" forces. Dawkins argues
for the unintelligent nature of evolution in the following passage:

The analogy between telescope and
eye, between watch and living organism, is false. All appearances to the
contrary, the only watchmaker in nature are the blind forces of physics,
albeit deployed in a very special way. A true watchmaker has foresight:
he designs his cogs and springs, and plans their interconnections, with
a future purpose in his mind's eye. Natural selection, the blind, unconscious,
automatic process which Darwin discovered, and which we now know is the
explanation for the existence and apparently purposeful form of all life,
has no purpose in mind. It has no mind and no mind's eye. It has no vision,
no foresight, no sight at all. If it can be said to play the role of watchmaker
in nature, it is the blind watchmaker. 15

As Paley claims, Dawkins holds that organisms could not have
just "happened" by chance alone. But, the forces that caused the complexity
in organisms do not have intelligence; this complexity was caused by natural
selection, which does not have foresight, purpose, or any of the other characteristics
of intelligence. He reiterates this point in The Blind Watchmaker
when he states that "natural selection is the blind watchmaker, blind because
it does not see ahead, does not plan consequences, has no purpose in view."16
In other words, if Darwin is right, then watches are not similar to living
organisms, and therefore, Paley's argument falls apart because there is
a better explanation, better in the sense that it explains reality better.

Thus, Dawkins must show that Darwin is right, or at least
show that Darwinism is plausible and a better explanation than creation.
Dawkins has to persuade people that men really came from bacteria. Furthermore,
he has already concluded that explanations that rely on too much chance
are not acceptable for explaining complexity. If it was, then we could
simply claim that watches are not made; they just "happen." Therefore,
Dawkins has to show his reader that it is not unrealistically improbable
that the organic world as we know it today, from antelopes to zebras,
was formed by natural selection. If he accomplishes this, then he believes
that the design argument is sunk and that he can even discredit theistic
belief.

II. The Importance of a Gradual Process

As Dawkins observes in The Blind Watchmaker, evolution
did not occur in one giant step but "by gradual, step-by-step transformations
from simple beginnings, from primordial entities sufficiently simple to
have come into existence by chance."17 It
is not as if an amoebae one day mutated into a chimpanzee. This process
took place over billions of years with a large amount of intermediate
steps. These intermediate steps were species which most likely do not
still exist.

The main issue in this section is believability. Evolution
cannot be the process of blind chance, or we cannot accept it as an explanation
for nature's complexity. But Dawkins attempts to show that evolution is
not the product of blind chance, as shown in the following passage from
The Blind Watchmaker: "chance is only a minor ingredient in the
Darwinian recipe, but the most important ingredient is cumulative selection
which is quintessentially nonrandom."18 The
ultimate determining factor in natural selection is not chance, but the
ability of an organism to survive. Yet, Dawkins has to do more than show
that evolution is based on more than just chance. He has to show that
the probability of evolution occurring as it did is low enough to accept.

One of the ways that he does this is to prove that natural
selection is a form of cumulative selection, not single step selection.
Single-step selection would be where something changed from thing A to
thing B. Cumulative selection has a natural sieving process that brings
about intermediate steps between thing A and thing B. Dawkins believes
that if he can show that the steps between the stages of cumulative selection
are small enough, the whole process is a justifiable explanation for the
apparent order in the universe. He tries to show how "a whole series of
tiny steps, each one small enough to be a believable product of its predecessor,
occurred one after the other in sequence."19
To accomplish this, he uses two metaphors, which have become famous.

The first metaphor is the typing monkeys, which tries to
illustrate the distinction between single-step selection and cumulative
selection. This illustration's main goal is to show that phenomena that
are practically impossible in one step can become almost a sure bet through
cumulative selection. Dawkins picked a passage from Shakespeare's Hamlet,
"Methinks it is like a weasel." He then figures the probability of a monkey
typing this phrase (using only capital letters and spaces) is something
around 1 in 10,000 million million million million million million. This
would be a form of single-step selection. A monkey randomly typing the
twenty-eight character phrase is next to nothing. A monkey could type
its entire lifetime and still only have a one in a trillion chance of
typing the correct phrase.

Dawkins then creates a computer program that deals with
the same scenario, but with cumulative selection. It starts with 28 random
characters, then "the computer examines the mutant nonsense phrases...
and chooses the one which, however slightly, most resembles the target
phrase, METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL."20
In other words, the computer program recognizes characters or sets of
characters which are like the target phrase, keeps them, and replaces
the others with another set of random characters. With every following
generation, the phrase looks more like the target, until it reaches it.
Dawkins discussed three trials where the target was reached in forty-one,
forty-three, and sixty-four generations. Assuming that a monkey could
write six phrases in an hour, he would normally be done in an average
workday; instead of the monkey in the first scenario who could work continuously
for its entire life and still not have a prayer of reaching the target
phrase.

The idea is that natural selection is more like the second
scenario. Species do not make large, random jumps through evolution. Instead,
they make small changes, which are kept because they are more likely to
survive with such an adaptation. Over a large span of time, these mutations
are accumulated, and something entirely different exists. Now, Dawkins
realizes the limitations of this illustration. In both scenarios, there
is a target phrase, which is the criterion for success. For evolution,
there is no such end goal. If there were, then that would imply a divine
creator who programmed the goal into nature like Dawkins programmed the
target phrase into his computer program. Thus he writes that "there is
no long-distance target, no final perfection to serve as a criteria for
selection."21 The criterion is reproductive
success or survivability, not a final goal; therefore this metaphor has
its limits.

Dawkins' second analogy tries to get around the first analogy's
limitations. Dawkins wrote a second computer program, which he referred
to as "biomorphing." Basically, the computer would draw a picture, which
look sort of like a tree. These trees would "reproduce" bearing several
offspring for every "parent", and the computer would mutate each of the
offspring. There were nine different "genes," which governed different
properties of the picture. Some genes controlled height, and others controlled
how many branches would stem off from each line. When the figure reproduced,
the computer would randomly select one of the genes and change its value.
This would alter the picture in some way. For every generation, the computer
would produce several different offspring, and Dawkins would represent
natural selection by choosing one of them. This "biomorphing" would produce
incredibly intricate pictures that barely resemble the simple tree-like
ancestor. Some of them even look like things in our world, like a bat
or a lunar module.

Again, this illustration is meant to show the effectiveness
of cumulative selection. From very simple beginnings, incredibly complex
images could be created through a succession of mutations. And this analogy
does not have a set goal or target, like the monkey analogy. In the following
passage from The Blind Watchmaker, Dawkins explains the purpose
of this illustration. It shows how complex results can be the product
of a nonintelligent cumulative process:

The point of the story is that even
though it was I that programmed the computer, telling it in great detail
what to do, nevertheless I didn't plan the animals that evolved, and I
was totally surprised by them when I fist saw their precursors. So powerless
was I to control the evolution that, even when I very much wanted to retrace
a particular evolutionary pathway it proved all but impossible to do so.
22

But Dawkins still sees two fundamental limitations in this
analogy. First of all, the computer program causes a mutation with every
reproduction, when in reality, the mutation rate is less then one in a million.
Dawkins admits that this mutation rate "is a distinctly unbiological feature
of the computer model."23 But the reason he
made the mutation rate so high is that he, nor any other human, would have
the patience to sit through a million mutations. As humans we only see a
minuscule section of biological time, so he had to speed up the process.

Secondly, this program depends upon artificial selection,
not natural selection. Dawkins claims that this program "shows us the
power of cumulative selection to generate an almost endless variety of
quasi-biological form, but it uses artificial selection, not natural selection."24
If evolution were based on artificial selection, it would require an external
arbitrator, i.e. God. Dawkins' excuse for this is that it was beyond his
computer programming skills to include all the complexities of the biological
world. For example, if a mutated organism dies before it reproduces, then
it cannot contribute to the evolutionary process, and the mutated gene
dies with it. There are so many factors in natural selection that it would
be very difficult to make the computer's selection similar to natural
selection. Therefore, he used his own selection to represent natural selection
because the main purpose of this analogy was to illustrate the power of
cumulative selection.

Dawkins believes that through these analogies he has shown
that incredible results can be caused by small steps. Therefore, while
it may be improbable for a human being to have mutated from bacteria,
through small intervals and cumulative selection, the process becomes
more plausible. Evolution is the continual procession of mutations, which
are small enough not to be inconceivable.

III. The Probability of Evolution

But even if we can conceive the possibility that small
mutations can cause incredibly complex organisms, that does not mean that
it is plausible. Some people claim that such mutations are possible, but
that the probability of them occurring in the way that they did is too
small to be a justified explanation for the existence of biological complexity.
Therefore, Dawkins has to be able to make the improbable probable. He
has to show why it is not inconceivable to claim that such a rare occurrence
happened on this planet.

Dawkins admits that the probability of the advanced state
of evolution, which we currently have on our planet is very, very low.
There are a great number of separate factors that are all highly improbable.
And as we all know, probabilities of a chain of events multiply together.
For example, if the probability that the first fish would form a lung
that would help it survive is .01 percent, and the probability that this
fish skin mutate to having skin that could survive the sun is .01 percent.
The probability that both of these events occurred is not .02 percent,
but .001 percent. This only takes two events into consideration, and as
Dawkins claims there is an immense amount of small steps that occurred
between the first single cell organism and human beings.

Furthermore, there are so many other things that could
go wrong. For instance, the first fish with its small lung would have
to survive long enough to reproduce, and in the natural world, that alone
is very improbable. Also, the fish has to be put in situations where this
lung would help it, like being stuck in a mud puddle. If such situations
never occurred, then the fish with a lung has no greater chance of surviving
than a fish without a lung, so evolution is stagnant. All of these outside
factors lower the probability down even farther. And again, just as we
cannot assume a watch formed from iron ore naturally, we could not accept
such a low probability.

But for Dawkins, this low probability does not present
a problem for Darwin's theory. First of all, he estimates that the upper
limit of the chance involved is 1 in 100 billion billion, which seems
like an incredible number. But these odds become much more reasonable
over the span of geologic time. Scientists have estimated that the first
organisms came into existence a billion years ago, so there is a billion
years for evolution to work with. Furthermore, we are not the only planet
in the universe. Earth may be the only planet in our solar system that
could support life, but there are countless stars, each with its own set
of planets. Dawkins claims that there are over a billion billion planets
that could possibly support life. Therefore, on a billion billion planets
there is a billion years for each one to possibly have complex organisms.
Basically, Dawkins paraphrases his move by claiming that "given infinite
time, or infinite opportunities, anything is possible."25

Really, Dawkins thinks that this is a moot point. He believes
the probability is much lower than one in a billion billion. He thinks
that once life begun, natural selection is such a strong force that the
evolution of intelligent life is almost inevitable:

My personal feeling is that, once
cumulative selection has got itself properly started, we need to postulate
only a relatively small amount of luck in the subsequent evolution of
life and intelligence. Cumulative selection, once it has begun, seems
to me powerful enough to make the evolution of intelligence probable,
if not inevitable.26

In conclusion, Dawkins knows that "we can accept a certain
amount of luck in our explanations, but not too much."27
He believes that the amount of luck involved in evolution as an explanation
is relatively small, but even if you think it is larger, there is enough
geologic time on enough planets to make almost any improbable event reasonable.

IV. Addressing Potential Problems

Once Dawkins has illustrated the gradual nature of evolution
and the probability of Darwin's theory, he believes that it is, at least
initially, a possible explanation for the existence of complexity in organisms.
But for it to be considered the correct explanation, it has to withstand
an onslaught of objections and criticisms. Dawkins tries to address several
of them.

A. One problem that faces the evolutionist is the
origin of DNA. In The Blind Watchmaker, Dawkins admits that "modern
heredity is based on DNA code, which is itself far too complicated to
have sprung spontaneously into being by a single act of chance."28
In other words, the complexity found in DNA needs an explanation as much
as the complexity of organisms does. Natural selection needs DNA or something
functionally equivalent. Without a medium for genetic reproduction and
mutation, there can be no evolution. Therefore, evolution cannot explain
the origin of DNA because DNA is necessary for evolution. But, Dawkins
thinks that the process for the formation of DNA is similar to the way
in which organisms evolved, through reproduction and a form of selection.

He presents a theory, which was actually founded by a biologist
named Cairns-Smith. He guessed that the original replicators were crystals
found in clay or mud. Dawkins does not hold this as the only possible
solution. But there must have been some form of replicator, which was
simple enough to have come about by chance. The definition of a replicator
is something that makes copies of itself. The first replicators were formed
by physical laws and were more simple then DNA. Crystals in clay is just
one possible form of a basic replicator.

The idea is that crystals grow like flowers and reproduce
themselves on an atomic level. Crystals that replicate themselves efficiently
are more abundant than those which do not. For example, well-replicated
crystals will form together at the bottom of a stream. Over time this
process became more complicated until some precursor to DNA was formed.

I admit that I do not understand the physics behind this
theory, but Dawkins does not present the process in detail. Once he explains
how the crystals reproduce, he just assumed that they would become more
complex and form DNA. On his behalf, this is just a tentative theory that
is not his own. He has another theory called the "selfish gene" theory.
I have never read his other theory, but I did read several critiques of
it. For simplification, I will stick to the one he presented in The
Blind Watchmaker.

B. Dawkins dealt with many objections, but I am
only going to discuss two. The second deals with what he perceives as
the most common objection to evolution, which he refers to as the Argument
from Personal Incredulity. Arguments from Personal Incredulity say things
like "it is hard to see how evolution happened as it did" or "I cannot
accept the idea that the human mind in all its magnificence was formed
from bacteria." Dawkins contention is that these are not real arguments
at all but statements about the speaker's confusion. Dawkins claims that
this attempt to attack evolution " is not an argument, it is simply an
affirmation of incredulity."29 Without coming
out and saying it, he is claiming that an objector's stupidity or reluctance
to accept a position does not say anything formidable about the theory
at hand.

IV. The Denial of God

Dawkins' attack on theism is at the crux of this work.
He has shown that evolution becomes a realistic explanation through cumulative
selection and the almost infinite amount of possibilities. Now, he wants
to prove that because of evolution, theism is no longer a defensible position.
And he believes that he has accomplished this. As Ric Machuga said, "Richard
Dawkins is absolutely confident that science will finally accomplish what
philosophy has been unable to do in more than 2,000 years-make theism
intellectually indefensible."30 Dawkins makes
many confident statements about God, which shows how sure he is that theism
is an absurd position. In the following two passages from "The Improbability
of God", you can see some of his personal views towards theism:

In (belief in a supreme creator)
has all been a gigantic waste of time and a waste of life. It would be
a joke of cosmic proportions if it weren't so tragic. 31The
evidence for evolution is so compelling that the only way to save the
creation theory is to assume that God deliberately planted enormous quantities
of evidence to make it look as if evolution had happened.... Does anybody
want to worship a God capable of such trickery?32

But Dawkins thinks that he has an argument that justifies
such remarks, which is based on the assumption that explanations that posit
complex causes do not deal with the problem at hand, and since God is an
infinite being, he has infinite attributes and qualities; therefore he is
infinitely complex:

By definition, explanations that
is built on simple premises are more plausible and more satisfying than
explanations that have to postulate complex and statistically improbable
beginnings. And you can't get much more complex than an Almighty God.33

The explanation that theists, like Paley, use to explain complexity
is based on a complex creative God. Therefore, theists assume the very thing
that these explanations are trying to resolve, complexity. They are using
a complex thing to explain complexity. Dawkins assumes that all complex
things need a special kind of explanation. Organic complexity is an example,
but the explanation for organic complexity could not rely on another complex
substance because it would need a special explanation of its own. Furthermore,
just as the complexity in nature could not have just come into existence,
the same would hold true for a complex god. As Dawkins argues in The
Blind Watchmaker, "the same applies to the odds against the spontaneous
existence of any fully fashioned, perfect and whole beings including-I see
no way of avoiding the conclusion-deities."34
Basically, creationists are postulating a complex being as the basis of
organic complexity, and if we are content with such an easy way out, then
why were we not content with postulating organic complexity without any
explanation in the first place?35 Since natural
selection is based on simple natural forces, then according to the above
assumption, evolution replaces Paley's analogy as a better explanation for
the existence of complexity in the universe.

Dawkins holds that evolution has replaced God as the only
acceptable explanation for complexity, and since it claims to be such
an explanation, Dawkins argues that "the Argument from Design, then has
been destroyed as a reason for believing in God."36
The Argument from Design is at least wrong, and at best superfluous. Although
Dawkins does not claim to disprove the possibility of God, God has no
part in the creation of organisms unless he is so distant that he becomes
irrelevant. Therefore, if most people believe in God because of some form
of the Argument from Design, then the foundation for most theistic belief
has been destroyed. Remember that analogies need to be reevaluated when
new information is introduced. Dawkins has attempted to show that Paley's
analogy is faulty. Paley is destroyed because he assumes what he tries
to explain (complexity), and a better solution has been given by Darwin.
He needs to negate the old analogy and uphold a new one as better, and
if he succeeds at both of these, then Paley has been successfully refuted.

SECTION THREE

I. General Remarks

I am not quite sure that Dawkins accomplishes either of
those objectives, rejecting the theist's explanation or presenting an
alternative. In this section of my paper, I am not going to attempt to
disprove evolution. As Kenneth Gallagher put it, "we ask not, 'Is Darwin
right?' but, 'Does Dawkins' argument make it plausible that Darwin is
right?"37 In other words, I am going to evaluate
Dawkins on a philosophical level, and not on a biological level. I am
also going to question his conclusion that evolution makes belief in God
indefensible. On his behalf, Dawkins is not a philosopher. He is a biologist
and is writing to a popular audience on a complex topic, but he makes
philosophical moves (possibly the biggest philosophical move in history
if he has rejected the existence of God). Therefore, he has to have a
strong position or his moves are nothing more then persuasive falsities.
I hold that Dawkins does not accomplish what he set out to do.

II. Misleading Metaphors

I will begin with Dawkins' two metaphors that try to show
the plausibility of evolution. My contention is that they do not say anything
substantial about evolution at all. I will be relying on an article by
Kenneth Gallagher, entitled "Dawkins in Biomorph Land." Let us begin with
the monkey at a typewriter. Gallagher claims that "while the model is
offered as a means to make natural selection more palatable, it is clearly
not analogous to natural selection at all."38
The main reason for this is the same fault that Dawkins admitted. The
analogy requires a future goal, but there can be no future goal without
positing a creator. Dawkins claims that the purpose of this illustration
is to emphasize the difference between single-step selection and cumulative
selection.

The model is not helpful to Dawkin's project for two reasons.
First of all, the difference between the two types of selection does not
need to be emphasized because it is common sense. If we take Dawkins'
purpose for this model seriously, he is trying to remind us that things
that occur in small steps that build upon one another are more feasible
then things that occur in one big step. No one believes a skyscraper was
formed in one step. Even small children with legos realize that cumulative
processes are more feasible than single-step processes. Why does Dawkins
need to spend so much effort to tell us something that everyone already
assumes? Furthermore, this model also emphasizes the problem at hand:
as Gallagher put it, "the problem is: is it really plausible to think
that there is any way that nature could provide selective influence without
looking into the future?"39 Dawkins is trying
to prove that there are no future goals in nature. In fact, that might
be the only way to rule out creation as an explanation for complexity
in the universe, yet Dawkins presents this analogy, which fails for the
same reasons that creationists would claim that evolution fails. An analogy
that uses target goals to try to disprove target goals is not very helpful.

Dawkins claims to have done a better job with the second
analogy, inasmuch as he has gotten rid of the projected target. In his
Biomorph program, there is no picture that marks success. Success is found
in the complexity of the pictures created by the program, but again this
analogy does not get around the problem of assuming a creator. First of
all, the instructions for mutation and the types of mutations are all
a result of an outside intelligence, namely Dawkins. Thus Gallagher writes,
"the instructions for its branching were not hidden inside it, but in
the mind of the programmer, or at most in the program he wrote."40
In this model, Dawkins is the watchmaker of his biomorphs, so again he
does not escape the problem he is trying to solve. Gallagher argues that
"if someone were struck by the final form of the biomorphs and inferred
that there must be a designer to account for the regularity he perceived,
he would not be wrong: the only order present, the symmetry and the constraints
on replication, have been designed."41

Furthermore, the Biomorph is nothing like evolution, which
makes it an ineffective metaphor. Evolution requires natural selection,
and natural selection requires some type of function. There has to be
something which makes some mutations continue and others die out, and
according to evolutionists, this is an organisms ability to survive and
reproduce. This is essential to evolution. Biomorphs do not do anything.
They have no function. To quote Gallagher, "since they are functionless
and do absolutely nothing, they appear to cross no qualitative barriers,
and it is not a great strain to think of their successive alterations
as arising by chance."42 There is nothing
in the program that weeds out certain mutations, no natural selection.
This model does not represent evolution, more than reemphasizing the benefits
of cumulative selection, as if that was needed. The only selection that
occurs is done by Dawkins, an outside intelligence.

Just to drive this point home, let me indicate that Dawkins
really believes that he did something significant with his Biomorph analogy.
Remember how he claimed that he was totally surprised by the results of
the program. First of all, he was only surprised because they looked like
things that his intelligence recognized as similar to an object, but there
is no outside frame of reference in evolution. Secondly, my response to
his surprise would be: "Why are you surprised when you programmed functions
into a program which depended on random outputs?" That would be like telling
someone to give me a random number and being surprised with his answer.
Dawkins programmed randomness into his program, so his program produced
infinitely varying results.

Basically, these analogies are not helpful to Dawkins project
for two reasons. First they do not represent reality. Again
quoting Gallagher, śalthough intended as striking way of rendering Darwinian
theory more accessible, they are seriously defective as a simulacra of
biological reality and hence cannot shed much light on it.”43
Secondly, both metaphors rely on a creator with intelligence outside of
the metaphor itself. Therefore, they do not escape the problem that
Dawkins is trying to solve. In short, he wants to claim that these
models help show why natural selection is plausible, but they cannot show
us how natural selection would occur.

III. The Improbability of Intelligent Life

Ernst Mayr is a famous biologist, who is also a committed
Neo-Darwinian. Mayr and Dawkins are trying to accomplish the same
thing, reveal evolution as truth. Both also believe that evolution
has destroyed the Design Argument. I am not going to discuss MayrĂs
presentation of evolution. Instead, I am going to use Mayr against
Dawkins. I believe that MayrĂs position is more complete and thorough
than DawkinsĂ, but for now, I am only concerned with what he says about
the probability of evolution. Remember that Dawkins believed that
once evolution got started, it was almost a sure thing that advanced intelligence
would eventually evolve. Mayr is much more skeptical.

Dawkins used the fact that there were billions of
stars and even more planets that could have produced evolved organisms.
Mayr disagrees. There are so many conditions that must occur in
just the right order for the origin of life to be even possible on a planet.
Even though there were billions of planets to start with, śthe total set
of prerequisites for the origin and maintenance of life drastically reduce
the number of planets that would have been suitable for the origin of
life.”44 Mayr goes on to admit that it is
probable that there is not a single other planet in the universe where
the conditions were all present and evolution could begin. Furthermore,
the probability of intelligent life to have evolved is far less than Dawkins
imagined. Mayr is struck śby the incredible improbability of intelligent
life to have evolved, even on earth.”45
To support this claim, he shows that out of the billions of species on
earth, only one has produced a high form of intelligence. Therefore,
we cannot assume that it was forthcoming like Dawkins believed.
Human beings are an incredibly unique occurrence.

It is clear that not all evolutionists agree that
evolution is even remotely probable. I am not going to discuss how
they get around that because I am focusing on Dawkins. Dawkins claims
that the improbable is made probable through almost infinite possibilities,
but according to Mayr, there are very few possibilities since there are
fewer planets that could support the evolutionary process. But even
if there were more opportunities, that does not affect the theist belief
in God. To prove this, let us say a man was stranded on a deserted
island. When he was exploring, he found the word ŚhelloĂ written
in stones on the shore. Even though it is possible that the tide
arranged the rocks in that way, the man is going to instantly assume that
there is intelligence on the island. Why, because it is highly improbable
that the tide wrote ŚhelloĂ. One might argue that there are millions
of beaches where tide has been moving rocks for millions of years; therefore,
at some point the word ŚhelloĂ is bound to be written on a beach.
That may be true (although Mayr says it is not for evolution), but the
man is still justified in his belief. Even if there were grooves
in the beach that made the writing of ŚhelloĂ more probable, I know that
if it were me, the thought that it just happened by chance would never
even cross my mind.

Furthermore, the argument from infinite possibilities
does not make something probable; it makes it possible. It does
not say how likely an event is; it says that if there are almost infinite
possibilities surely event X śmust” have happened at least once.
The problem with that argument is that it could be argued for anything.
There must be a world where life is formed from silicon and not carbon,
or where there are pink elephants. I admit that Dawkins does not
say that there are infinite possibilities, but the argument is the same.
Furthermore, even if he shows that it could have happened, he has failed
to prove that it did happen. He has to show what qualities the universe
has that implies that it was not created by intelligence, but I will discuss
that later in the paper. Dawkins has failed to show me that evolution
is plausible through probability.

IV. Now what about God?

So far, I have shown why his metaphors do not accomplish
what he hoped that they would and put into doubt his assurance that evolution
was a probable event. I admit that I had to rely heavily on MayrĂs
works because I do not know enough about the biology of evolution to discuss
its probability. Also, many people take issue with DawkinsĂ account
of the origin of DNA. He leaves a lot of unanswered questions like
whether DNA could function unless there are cells that can read it.
It is like a book. It is useless without a reader. I personally
doubt that clay was the foundation of life, but again I am not an expert
on replicating crystals. Now, the rejection of God is a philosophical
move, and one that I hope to show he is not entitled to make.

Many philosophers argue that Dawkins makes the mistake
of arguing for things because evolution demands it. Gallagher, for
example, writes that śin the long run the argument comes dangerously close
to the view that things must have happened this way, since the theory
of natural selection demands it.”46
Going back to the issue of the origin of life, Dawkins himself admits
that all he can do is speculate on how it had to happen. Dawkins
writes that śthis chapter has had the modest claim of explaining only
the kind of way in which it [the origin of life] must have happened.”47
Unfortunately he is trying to show why natural selection is true, not
what must have happened if natural selection is true. Machuga interprets
Dawkins as saying, śWell, I donĂt know how life originated, but I know
God isnĂt a good explanation.”48

Kenneth Nelson argues that śif evolution did undermine
the argument from design, there must have been something about the particular
mechanisms that science discovered that suggests non-intelligence.”49
But that is not DawkinsĂ argument. Dawkins illustrates the basics
of the Darwinian account of evolution, but he does not at each point explain
why scientific facts have ruled out an intelligent creator. Instead,
he lets both explanations for complexity stand, and at the end, he rules
out creation as a weaker argument. The basis for such a move is
his argument from simplicity. Creation posits a complex infinite
creator to explain complexity; therefore it does not escape the problem
that it is trying to explain. Evolution, on the other hand, has
explained organic complexity on the basis of simple physical forces.
Therefore, evolution is a better explanation.

Dawkins provides two arguments for why his śsimple” explanation
is better. The first argument relies on the definition of complexity
that he used in the introduction of The Blind Watchmaker.
Dawkins has already defined a complex thing that needed a special explanation
as śsomething whose constituent parts are arranged in a way that is unlikely
to have arisen by chance.”50
A complex thing is a composite, a heterogeneous structure. Dawkins
uses ścomplexity” with a very specific meaning throughout the book.
He does not mean complex purposes or intentions. For example, a
rock is a simple thing, but it can be used for almost infinite purposes.
Things that display complexity in its intricate parts, e.g. watches or
eyes, need special explanations. Things that do not display this
specific type of complexity do not need explanations. Rocks may
be complex in purpose and the composition of atoms, but it does not have
intricately interacting parts. Therefore, rocks and other śsimple”
things do not need special explanations.

Dawkins claims that theism cannot explain complexity by
positing God because God is a complex creature who needs an explanation
of His own. Dawkins reminds us that complex things are things which
could not have arisen by chance, and śthe same applies to the odds against
the spontaneous existence of any fully fashioned, perfect and whole beings
including¤I see no way of avoiding the conclusion¤deities.”51
In The Blind Watchmaker, argues that theists śassume the existence
of the main thing we want to explain, namely organized complexity.”52
In the same passage, Dawkins adds that śif we are going to allow ourselves
the luxury of postulating organized complexity without offering an explanation,”53
we should just go ahead and assume organic complexity without an explanation.
In other words, Dawkins is equating GodĂs complexity to the type of complexity
that warrants an explanation, and Dawkins has already defined such complexity.
Therefore, according to DawkinsĂ own definition of complexity, God has
to be a composite. Dawkins never spells this out, but from his assertion
that God needs an explanation because of his complexity, we must assume
that he is referring to the same type of complexity, complexity of composition.
If not, his objection would not have any merit because it is based on
the fact that complex composites need an explanation.

Kenneth Gallagher paraphrases DawkinĂs objection
as follows: śThe God who was the author of complexity would have to be
complex, and thus would need an explanation of the same sort he was supposed
to provide.”54 But there is a
problem with assuming that God needs an explanation because only things
with intricately interacting parts need an explanation, and God is not
a composite. He has no parts. For thousands of years it has
been argued that God is purely simple. Thus Gallagher notes that
śbeginning with the Greeks and continuing through the main stream of western
(if not world) philosophy, there has been an insistence on the Divine
Simplicity as one of the attributes of the absolute being.”55
Dawkins has not shown in what way God is a composite, and most philosophers
have argued that he is purely simple. There are many different definitions
of ścomplex” and śsimple”, but I am using DawkinsĂ definition of ścomplex”
as a composite whose parts interact, śsimple” as a substance that does
not have interacting parts. Therefore, according to Dawkins own
definition of complexity, God does not need an explanation in the same
way as watches or rhinoceroses. Therefore, any argument which tries
to claim that God cannot explain complexity because He has a specific
type of complexity needing an explanation of his own cannot be used against
theism because that specific type of complexity implies a heterogeneous
structure, which God is not.

Gallagher holds that DawkinsĂ feeble attempt to discredit
belief in God makes it seem as if he really did not need to offer a good
argument. Gallagher argues that śDawkins does not do very much towards
the application of his argument to this atheistic end, clearly feeling
that once the explanation of organic complexity has been achieved by Darwinism
any need to appeal to a deity is obviated.”56
It is as if once Dawkins presents his version of Darwinism, it should
be obvious that creation is absurd. But I think that there can be
another legitimate argument that can be implied from both śThe Improbability
of God” and The Blind Watchmaker, which could possibly show why
evolution is a better explanation for organic complexity than creation.
Unfortunately, for Dawkins, this argument was never explicitly laid out,
but it can be inferred and is stronger than the explicit argument that
he provides.

This argument relies on a different understanding of ścomplexity.”
It is an appeal to OchamĂs razor, which states that the simplest of two
or more competing theories is preferable. Furthermore, unexplained
phenomena should be explained by causes that we know or understand.
In śThe Improbability of God,” Dawkins writes:

By definition, explanations that
build on simple premises are more plausible and more satisfying than explanations
that have to postulate complex and statistically improbable beginnings.
And you can't get much more complex than an Almighty God.57

The complexity that Dawkins is referring to here is not the
specific definition in his first argument. It refers to metaphysical
complexity. And I am willing to concede that God is much more complex
than our minds could fathom and that He is more complex than the material
state of the universe. In the previous passage, he is making a move
similar to OchamĂs razor. Evolution is a better explanation (all other
things being equal) than creation because its explanation is simpler.
Natural forces, like natural selection, are simpler than an infinite creator.

Assuming that there are only two possible explanations,
creation and evolution, Dawkins holds that the simpler of the two is a
better explanations, and for the sake of argument, let us assume all other
factors are equal. There are two explanations with equal explanatory
power. Both explain organized complexity in a plausible and justified
way. I will assume that the only difference is a matter of complexity.
It is clear that creation is based on complex assumptions. Creation
posits an infinite being who works in ways that we cannot comprehend.
We know nothing about the causal powers of God. Evolution, on the
other hand, is relatively simple. It is based on mutations and survivability,
two factors that we can understand through science. And instead
of positing a God who works upon the physical world, evolution reduces
the explanation to only the physical world. Organic complexity can
be explained by physical forces alone; God is not necessary. Therefore,
based on OchamĂs razor, evolution is a better explanation than creation.

So where does that leave the theist? For the rest
of this paper, I am going to assume that Dawkins was successful in convincing
me that evolution is a valid theory supported by scientific data.
This would be the best case scenario for Dawkins, but what does it mean
for the theist? Well, letĂs start by asking what it does to the
design argument. I think it is safe to say that if OchamĂs razor
is true then the Design Argument fails because it serves as an explanation,
and if there is a better explanation then it no longer proves the existence
of an infinite creator. Yet, it is important to note that OchamĂs
razor is not a self-evident axiom. It is a general methodological
principle. In other words, it helps lead to more correct theories
and explanations. But there must be exceptions where the simplest
explanation is not the correct one.

My main criticism is that OchamĂs razor rejects all theistic
or religious explanations. Naturalistic explanations will always
be better (if other factors are equal) than explanations that rely on
supernatural causes because we can certainly understand scientific explanations
better, and all religious explanations will posit a metaphysical substance
other than the physical world. Therefore, if we uphold OchamĂs razor,
all naturalistic explanations are better than theistic explanations.
Thus, when Dawkins appeals to OchamĂs razor, he is begging the question.
Dawkins is trying to show why evolution, a naturalistic position, is a
better explanation for organic complexity than creation, a theistic position.
When Dawkins assumes that simple explanations are better than complex
explanations, he has assumed that any naturalistic explanation is better
than any theistic explanation, but that is what he is trying to prove.
He is trying to show that a particular naturalistic explanation is better
than a particular theistic explanation. He cannot simply claim that
all explanations of phenomenon that are based solely on scientific understanding
of physical forces rule out any explanation which rely on physical forces
and supernatural forces. OchamĂs razor rules out all theistic explanations
by limiting all acceptable explanations to science; therefore it begs
the question.

But even if scientific explanations are necessarily better
than theistic explanations, what would that accomplish? Primarily,
the Argument from Design would be refuted (keeping the assumption that
evolution is an adequate explanation). But the destruction of the
Design Argument and evolution would not seriously challenge the existence
or belief in God. The strongest claim that Dawkins could make is
that belief is no longer justified. The basis for this move would
have to be that a significant part of the reason most people believe in
God is the Argument from Design. If people believed in God, and
their belief was based on a faulty argument, then they would no longer
be as justified in their belief in God. But I do not think that
most people believe in God because of some form of the Argument from Design.
I cannot speak for everyone, but the Argument from Design is not the foundation
of my faith. I believe in God because I have experienced God, not
because I think that he is the only explanation for organic complexity.
A successful refutation of the Argument from Design would not seriously
affect justification of a belief in God.

Furthermore, it is very clear that nothing Dawkins has
done challenges the existence of God. He admits that he ścould not
disprove beliefs like these.”58 Suprisingly,
he still makes claims about GodĂs irrelevance and rejection. Even
if he could prove that evolution reveals a universe without design, that
would not imply that God did not exist or that there are not justified
reasons for believing that God exists. Even if he was completely
successful at his project, he could only show that one reason for believing
in God is no longer justified.

V. Conclusion

In summary, Paley and Dawkins both agree that certain types
of complexity warrant explanations. Paley thought that organic complexity
needed a creator, like mechanic complexity has a creator. Dawkins
tries to reject PaleyĂs explanation and provide a better one. Unfortunately,
he relies on two metaphors, which do not accomplish what he intended.
He thought they would show how natural selection could occur through small
steps. Instead, they only should how things could be done in small
steps, but they did not say anything about natural selection. He
also thought that since there is over a billion billion planets, evolution
does not simply become possible, but probable. Biologists like Mayr
see evolution as a unique and highly improbable occurrence. Furthermore,
he does not show that evolution is probable, but possible, and the universe
still seems to display ordered creation.

His basis for rejecting creation is an argument that claims
that since creation is trying to explain complexity and God is a complex
thing, it tries to solve the problem by returning to the problem.
Unfortunately, God, if he exists, is not a complex thing by DawkinsĂ definition.
Complex things need explanations and are composites, but God is not a
composite, but a simple substance. It could be inferred from DawkinsĂ
project that he is appealing to OchamĂs razor to reject creation as a
suitable explanation. Unfortunately, that move begs the question
because it assumes that all scientific explanations are better then explanations
that rely on supernatural forces.

To successfully fulfill his project, Dawkins needed to
show what qualities of the universe show formation without intelligence
or the inconsistency in the idea that God created the universe.
But he did not do either of those. Thus, Dawkins did not show that
creation is a faulty explanation for organic complexity, which was his
original goal. Again, I am only critiquing some of DawkinĂs philosophical
moves, not his entire project. But for his project to accomplish
what he intended, to show why evolution reveals a universe without design,
he must successfully defend his philosophical moves. The one argument
he does give for rejecting creation as a suitable explanation is faulty,
and the argument that could be implied begs the question.

In conclusion, I do not know how the Christian should react
to evolution. I do not want to fall into defending the śGod of the
Gaps”. I personally doubt that naturalists will ever be able to
refute creationists. At the most fundamental basis for understanding,
they disagree. One holds that supernatural powers have causal powers
on the world. The other does not. Both of those claims are
faith statements, and it is difficult for the two sides to communicate
effectively because they both discredit the other by the very basis of
their understanding. But, maybe it can be done. Maybe, evolution
and science will somehow prove that the universe is without design.
But it is clear that Dawkins has not ruled out the role of the Watchmaker.